Finding Perfect
by NicolaPotter
Summary: Rose and the human Doctor are left at Bad Wolf Bay.  This is the story of their horrible, stupid, perfect, human lives.
1. Best and Worst

"I love you."

It was exactly what she had expected, or maybe just hoped, he would say. Still, she had to think for a moment before she realized what he had just said.

_He loved her._

And so she kissed him. Rose Tyler kissed the Doctor, the human Doctor, the one who could stay with her forever, at Bad Wolf Bay, the place where the worst- and best- things in her life happened.

She was kissing him, hands wrapped around his neck, his arms around her waist, when she heard the TARDIS. It was leaving. The Doctor was leaving her again, without saying good-bye. She was shocked for a moment, moving forward, watching the TARDIS disappear. Then the other Doctor came to her, took her hand in his, and stood there, a reminder that this time, she was not left alone. She had him, and she would always have him. They looked at each other, silent and unmoving, and this time he moved first. He kissed her again, still holding her hand tightly.

She was crying as she kissed him, crying for happiness and sadness all at once. He had abandoned her again, on this lonely beach, but this time she had what she wanted, what she needed. Him. The Doctor. But a Doctor who loved her, would tell her so, and would live a life with her. A proper life. A life without regenerations. A human life, but, if they were lucky, not a normal life at all. That was what she wanted, and that was what he had given her.

She was still crying and he was still holding her hand, making her sit down on the sand with him, talking into her ear, reminding of everything perfect thing they had done together, all the perfect things they had seen.

"Remember New Earth, and how we lay in the apple grass? And do you remember the Olympics, in 2012?"

"You stole the torch." She was laughing now, still wiping away tears, leaning into him.

"I was helping!" He grinned at her, squeezing her hand. "And what about Christmas Dinner with your mum? You remember that?"

"You grew another hand."

"And now I am that hand. It's a good hand." He wiggled his fingers at her and she laughed.

"What happens now? Do we go back to London?" She was watching him now, sitting up.

"Do you want to?"

"No." She spoke with surprising certainty, but he didn't question her.

"Well, Rose Tyler," he said instead, "what do you want to do?"

"I want to go to the ocean." The answer came easily to her, although she had no idea where it came from.

He nodded towards the waves hitting the shore mere feet away. "We're already there."

"Not here," she said impatiently. "Not England either. Somewhere far away."

"Then that's where we'll go. Just for a few weeks, until we're all adjusted to this, until I'm used to being"- his face screwed up comically- "human."

"Thank you." She kissed him again, quickly and lovingly.

He stood up quickly, bouncing to his feet and holding out a hand for her. She let herself be pulled to her feet, not letting go of his hand upon standing. He put her arm around her shoulders and she allowed herself to be led down the beach, back to her mum and back to being asked if she was okay (of course not), how she was feeling (confused), what she wanted to do (leave). All that time, the Doctor kept his arm on her shoulders, holding her, letting her lean into him, keeping her from crying again.

"Everything's going to be fine now, you know that, right?" he asked, looking at her with a softer look in his eyes than she was used to.

"No." She hugged him, tears coming again. "But it will be."

They left Bad Wolf Bay together, following Jackie away from the beach, still holding on to each other. It was not a perfect ending. But it could be. Someday, everything could be perfect for them.


	2. Now

She was happy, so happy, salty air whipping through her hair, waves soaking her, clothes plastered to her skin.

"Rose..."

He was still standing in the shallows, pants rolled up to his knees, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

"Come on." She grabbed his hand, pulling him into the ocean, laughing as he flinched when spray from a wave hit his face.

"No- I don't want-"

A wave knocked Rose off her feet and she fell on top of him, laughing and shaking the water from her eyes.

He grinned, pulling her upright just in time to be hit by another wave. Soaked to the skin but still smiling, he led her back to the beach, where hot sand stuck to their wet clothes.

"It's beautiful here, isn't it?" she said, collapsing on the sand and staring at the sun rising over the deep blue ocean.

"Well, Woman Wept was better." He said, half apologetic, half teasing.

"It's good for Earth, though, yeah?" She looked over at him, eyebrows raised expectantly.

"It's good, yes."

Today, lying on a beach in the middle of nowhere, the most perfect place to be when all you wanted was to avoid everywhere, she could see her future more clearly than ever before. The human Time Lord sitting next to her, attempting to wring the water out of his shirt, he was her future. She had no idea how everything would work out in the next few weeks, months, years. But seeing him grin at her like that, like everything in the world was exactly as it should be, reassured her that one day, it would be. In the end, everything would be fine. More than fine. It would be brilliant, perfect beyond imagination.

"What are you smiling about?"

He was looking at her, eyebrows contracting.

"Everything." She laughed, leaning back her head to beam at the cloudless sky.

This all-consuming happiness would end soon, she knew; soon she would have to return to London and life in this world that she was still not quite used to. But even the life she knew would be dramatically changed by the arrival of the Doctor. Still, they would be good changes; she was certain, certain enough to make herself believe it at least.

"Rose."

She looked up, surprised by how soft his voice was.

"I wanted to thank you."

"What for?" She frowned slightly, sitting up and looking at him.

"Letting me not be him." He was meeting her eyes calmly as he spoke, the intensity of his gaze burning into her.

"I don't-"

"I know what you wanted was the Doctor, the one who took you all over the universe. I'm not him, not quite. Thank you for...letting that be enough."

"The Doctor I wanted was the one who would stay with me forever. That's you, not him."

He kissed her suddenly, as though in thanks for her words.

"Rose Tyler, you're brilliant, you know that?" He took her hand as he spoke, holding in tight in his sandy palm.

"Because I said I wanted you?" She was laughing, leaning against his rather bony shoulder.

"Well..." He kissed her again, turning his head at an awkward angle to reach her mouth.

"When do we have to go back?" she asked a few minutes later, drawing circles in the sand with her fingertip.

"I don't know." He frowned at the ocean. "I suppose we can't stay here forever." It sounded more like a question than a statement.

Rose shook her head. "We should go home tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" He seemed taken aback.

"Yeah. That okay?" She looked at him, hopeful and uncertain.

"Of course. Er-why?"

"I don't know." She closed her eyes, tipping her head back. She kept talking, face still raised to the heavens. "I just don't feel like I can stay in one place for very long, you know what I mean?"

He looked at her, one eyebrow raised impossibly high. "I used to have a TARDIS. I never stayed in the same _galaxy_ for more than a day if I could help it."

"Sorry."

"Just making a point."

The conversation drifted away, leaving them sitting on the beach in silence. Rose closed her eyes again, basking in the warm glow of the sun. She felt more relaxed in that moment than she had in months, possibly years. This beach was where she wanted to stay forever, sun and sand and cool water, but at the same time, she couldn't wait to move on.

Tomorrow, they would leave, going home, back to London and Torchwood and day after day of ordinary life. But for today, for one day, they could stay here, on this beach, alone and at peace.

Tomorrow, it would change. But tomorrow was a long time away. All Rose cared about was today, and now, this moment she was experiencing, a moment better than anything ever before. And that was good. That was very good.


	3. And Back Again

I'm not sure what I think of this chapter. In general, I like it, but it's just a lot different from the first two, partly because there's a lot more talking and less thinking. Please review and give me your opinion, because I really don't know what to think of it.

All there was was darkness, endless blackness pressing back on her, nothing there, just the suffocating dark, stealing the air from her lungs-

"Rose?"

Her name brought her back to reality, reminding her how to breathe and that the darkness could not hurt her.

"I'm fine, sorry," she said softly, letting her head drop back against the seat.

"We'll be there in about twenty minutes." His voice was flat, unenthusiastic. She could tell that he was as depressed as she was by the incessant rain, such a dramatic change from the warm, sunny beach yesterday.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to go back." She was speaking softly, like a child who knew they wouldn't get their way but was trying anyway.

"I'm not jumping off a train." He looked at her, mouth twisted into a half smile. She was staring at the back of the seat in front of her, expressionless. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah...no." She changed her mind halfway through, turning to frown at the Doctor. "I don't want to have to go back to normal life and... I just saved reality and found you again and I expected to get to travel all over time and space now, but instead, I'm back to working in a lab at Torchwood. I'm not blaming you," she added quickly, seeing his frown, "I just... I didn't want to just go back, all of a sudden, and I know you didn't either."

"Well, I dunno. I've never lived a normal human life before, with jobs and a house and aging and all that. Might be fun," he said, half-joking.

"No, it won't be," Rose said flatly.

"You know, you don't have to work for Torchwood."

"What, should I get a job in a shop?" Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"How about, I dunno, U.N.I.T. or politics or the United Nations or something?" he suggested. "With your Torchwood contacts, you could get a job almost anywhere."

"Yeah, I could get elected Prime Minister." She rolled her eyes. "I rather do something... fun."

"Like what?" he asked, grinning. "And don't say travel through time in a blue box."

"I wish." She sighed. "I really have no idea. And that makes me so mad."

"What do you mean?" He wasn't smiling anymore; he turned in his seat to watch her as she spoke.

"I've been so many places in the universe, and it was always brilliant, even when we were about to die and all that. But here, I'm annoyed and angry and just _bored_ a lot more than I'm happy. I mean, I know it'll be better now you're here and I realize being fed up with life is totally normal, but life in London seems _pointless_. And the fact that I think that makes me so angry, with myself and with my life. It's just...I don't know." She closed her eyes, suddenly feeling stupid.

The Doctor was looking at her oddly, head tilted to the side. "I have no idea what you mean."

"What?"

"I've never had to live a normal life with whatever it is you lot have to deal with." He ran a hand through his hair, looking agitated. "You know, washing machines and electricity bills and sporks-"

"Sporks?" she repeated, frowning.

"I don't understand them!" he said loudly. "What's the point?"

"They're just spoons and forks put together... What's wrong with that?" she asked, uncertain if he was joking or not.

"I don't get it! Nowhere else in the universe do they have sporks... It's just you stupid humans!"

"You're a human too, you know," Rose pointed out, smiling. "Just as stupid as the rest of us... Well, maybe not."

"Never mind that," he said impatiently. "What I'm trying to say is, I have no idea how to live a human life; I'm way worse off than you."

"What, are you trying to make me feel bad about complaining or something?" Rose stared at him, a little offended.

"No, no, I'm saying, you'll have to help understand life and all that." He looked at her, smiling teasingly. "Should be pretty funny for you."

"What d'you mean?"

"You know me! I'm not exactly going to blend in. You've got your work cut out for you, making me normal."

She laughed, surprising herself. Looking out the window, she saw that they had just reached the train station. Arriving home laughing was not something she had at all expected. Then again, she also hadn't expected to argue about sporks on the journey. The Doctor was very bad at being predictable.

"Well, here we are. 21st-century London. December 23. Hey, it's almost Christmas!" He grinned at her, following a skinny teenager off the train.

"You don't have much time to buy gifts," she remarked as they walked out onto the freezing street.

"Gifts... I can't remember the last time I had to do Christmas gifts..." He stopped for a moment before saying loudly, "Do I have to give something to your mum?"

"She'll kill you if you don't," she said, laughing. "I'll help-"

She broke off as he pulled her across four lanes of traffic through a fleeting gap in the cars, causing more than a few drivers to honk angrily.

"What did you do that for?"

"We had to get across," he said casually.

"You almost got us killed!" Rose said incredulously.

"There was an opening. Besides"-he grinned- "I promised I'd make life interesting."

"Just try not to get me killed on my first day back, all right?" she said, annoyed and amused at same time.

He laughed. "Where do we go from here, anyway?"

"Let's just get a taxi, it'll be faster." She stuck out her arm, and the one of the black cars pulled over to the curb.

"Where to?" the driver asked, heading back into traffic.

"The Tyler residence," she said, sitting back. The driver nodded, taking a left.

"What- they just know where it is?" the Doctor said, eyebrows raised.

"It's a great big mansion belonging to one the richest people in London. They know where it is," she said, smiling at his confusion.

"How far away is it?" he asked her, but it was the driver who answered.

"Fifteen minutes."

The Doctor sighed and leaned back. He started fiddling with the window, rolling it up and down, until Rose reached over and pulled his hand away from the window, frowning. He rolled his eyes and spent the rest of the drive tapping incessantly on the armrest, ignoring her frequent glares.

"Here you are then. Tyler Mansion," the driver proclaimed, stopping in front the gates.

"Thanks," Rose said, handing him a wad a bills and getting out. They walked up to the front doors, pausing on the porch.

"Well, here we are. Home sweet home." He raised his eyebrows at her, almost as though he was asking her whether or not she wanted to go in.

"Yep." She didn't know if she was happy or sad to be back, to be facing the prospect of seeing her family and dealing with this world again, but there really wasn't any turning back now.

She was home.


	4. Humans

"What are you doing?"

Surprised, she sat up. The Doctor was standing over her, hands in his pockets, head blocking out the sun.

"Watching the clouds." Rose was lying on the grass outside the Tyler mansion, propped up on her elbows, head tilted towards the sky.

"What?" He sprawled on the ground next to her, eyebrows raised.

"You know how when you're a kid, you sometimes spend forever looking at the sky, looking for shapes in the clouds and all that?" she explained, still staring up at the fluffy white clouds. "That's what I'm doing. I haven't had time to do something stupid like this for ages."

"Nor have I, I suppose," he said, a bit doubtfully, glancing up at the sky and back to Rose again.

A few minutes of peaceful cloud-gazing later, she asked, "Do you ever miss stuff like that? Stupid, fun things like looking or clouds or, I dunno, building snowmen or something? Just all the silly stuff humans do just 'cause it's fun?"

He didn't answer for a very long time, and when he finally spoke, he didn't seem to be answering properly anyway. "A lot has happened to me since I last saw you, since Canary Wharf and Bad Wolf Bay. And some things... I had to become human." He said it very suddenly, quickly, as though scared she'd be angry.

"What- like you are now?" she asked, confused.

"No, fully, completely human. I rewrote my biology. Incredibly painful, and it made me forget everything. All about time travel, and other worlds, and even who I was. I ended up as a schoolteacher in 1913. And...I fell in love."

"You did what?" Her voice was loud, disbelieving, almost angry.

"I fell in love." He wasn't looking at her, preferring to watch the sky as he spoke. "With a human. Joan Redfern. She worked at the school. And... when I had to change myself back into a Time Lord to stop some aliens, right before I did, I saw a whole life. I saw exactly what my life would have been like if I had stayed human, stayed with Joan."

He stopped speaking, staring the clouds but clearly looking beyond them, back into the past.

"What did you see?" she asked quietly, looking at him obliquely.

"Everything." He looked as though he was torn between grinning and crying. "A wedding, a birth, a family, and"-his eyes went dark and hard, but somehow softer, more human than before-"a death."

"Whose death?"

"Mine." He went quiet, soul bleeding out through his eyes, a million different impossible emotions, stuffed away just beneath the surface but pouring out in his eyes, eyes Rose couldn't help watching even though they were fixed on things far beyond what she could see.

"I'm sorry." That wasn't what she wanted to say, but it was the only thing she could think to say, two stupid, meaningless words that never managed to help but were so often the only things anyone could offer.

"But that's not why I'm telling you." He was looking at her again, eyes nearly clear of the wild humanity that had been there moments ago. "I'm saying, that's what I miss. Not the stupid stuff like watching clouds, because if I wanted to, I could do that. The things I miss are the things I can't do, the things that are some the best parts of every person's life. I skip the pointless stuff by choice, but I don't do the things that matter because I have to."

"But now you don't."

"That's true." All of a sudden he was grinning, his huge, stupid, isn't-life-brilliant grin. "I could get married, if I wanted to."

"Not necessarily," she said, laughing, the return to more light-hearted subjects entirely welcome. "You'd have to find someone who'd marry you first."

"Where would I find someone like that?" he said, one eyebrow raised.

The tone of the conversation changed subtly, shifting towards topics that were not exactly displeasing but slightly awkward nonetheless.

"Try Torchwood."

"What?" His eyebrow dropped, confusion setting in.

"They're nerds who spend their days obsessing over aliens; you're a nerd who _is_ an alien. It's sort of perfect," she said seriously.

"The Torchwood people fight aliens. They would try to kill me, or at minimum dissect me."

"Oh, I'm sure there'd be someone there who wouldn't want that," she said with a slight smile.

"On an unrelated note, where do _you_ work, Rose?"

"Shut up." She rolled her eyes, laughing.

He took her hand. "Do you want to keep watching clouds?"

"Do you mind?"

"No."

"Even though it's stupid?"

"Some stupid things are still worth doing."

"Good."


	5. Things Not Said

First of all, I'm sorry this chapter is so short, and I'm also sorry I haven't written for so long. Oops.

Anyway, if you'd like to know where this chapter came from, here you go: I thinking back to the Bad Wolf Bay scene and was overthinking all the lines, leading me to get a lot more out of them then the writers probably ever intended. Hence this chapter. Enjoy!

"I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want."

_If you want._

She had forgotten that moment, what he had said, in the days that followed. Not that he said he loved her. That she was not willing to forget. But it had eclipsed the significance of everything else that happened on that beach.

But now she remembered. Not only that, she understood.

He had said, "If you want." If _you_ want. If she, Rose Tyler, wanted it. Nothing about him, about what the Doctor would want.

"Does it really need saying?"

The words jerked into her mind, bringing with them a surge of anger. The Doctor never says the most important things. Never. Because it what he hadn't said but had so clearly made known was that he would, without question, without even a thought, live out his life with her.

Beyond even that, though, was what he had said, without intending to, she was sure, about the other one, the other Doctor. They were the same person, near enough, and Rose knew, somehow, that this was one thing they shared. The other one would have stayed with her, if it could have ever been that simple. If it had been just a question of what he wanted, not what was best for her, for him, for the whole of time and space.

But it never worked like that. It was never simple, not for the Doctor. And that, somehow, broke her heart more than being left behind ever could.

He could never have what he wanted, because of the gift of being a Time Lord. He never really had to die, but he didn't get to live either.


	6. Reality

**Here's another chapter! Sorry I haven't written anything since October, but, in my defense, I was doing NaNoWriMo. Anyway, I'm paying attention to this story again, which is good. Read and please review. Thanks!**

"Stop," she said suddenly, an unfamiliar sense of urgency in her voice. He froze obediently, hand half-closed over the doorknob.

"What is it?" he asked, surprised, looking at Rose.

"I don't want to go in there." She actually took a step back, away from the door, from Torchwood.

"Why not?" His eyebrows were raised in such a characteristic "Doctor" look that she had to smile.

"It's just...they all know me," she said, smile fading. "Everyone knows who I am, and what I was off doing. And they'll want to hear about it, you know?"

"Um...sorry, what's wrong with that?" he asked, visibly confused.

"It-it happened so far away from here, in a whole different universe." She paused, head tilted to the side. "And that makes it feel like it was just a dream or something."

"But...why?" He frowned at her, firmly unable to comprehend her problem. "You've seen plenty on impossible things before."

"Yeah, but for all that, for everything I saw, I knew it was out there, somewhere. Here, it's not. All those Dalek ships you destroyed, all those people who died, and even everyone who didn't, they were never here. It feels like some fairy tale in my head," she argued with surprising ferocity.

"It still happened," he said simply, imploring her to understand the obvious.

"I know that!" She was angry for a moment, frustration sharpening her words. "I just feel like...like I can't prove it to myself."

He stared at her, looking almost taking aback. Seeming to be torn between laughing and frowning, he said, "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Oh...right. Yeah." She looked vaguely embarrassed, not quite meeting his eyes. "I forgot about that."

"I noticed." When she continued to look awkward, he said impatiently, "Come on, let's go meet Torchwood."

He opened the door and followed her into Torchwood, into a mass of labs and alien everything, geniuses and ordinary people who knew a lot more than they were supposed to. Into a whole new world, in the middle of London, in some random office building, no more important than any of the other buildings surrounding it. But for Rose, it was her job, her friends, practically everything she had in this reality. For him, it could be anything. And at that moment, halfway through the doorway, it was just as new as any planet at the edge of the universe or a never-before-seen species. And that wasn't half-bad, for a human life on Earth. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as he had anticipated.


	7. Judoon Platoon Upon the Earth?

** Hello again! I've finally added a new chapter. I sincerely apologize for how long it's been. I'm bad at this, I know.**

**So, this chapter is written in quite a different style from the others, as well as being rather longer. I would love it if you would review and tell me what you think of it. Do you prefer the old style or is this one better? What do you think of it actually having a plot for once? Even though this chapter is more dialogue and actually doing things than the thought-centric ones before it, it doesn't mean I'll never do a chapter in the old way again. I want to hear your opinion on the matter!**

**One last thing: The Doctor's look that I do a very bad job of describing is supposed to be like that really amazing one he gives Martha in the "Smith and Jones" episode, when they're talking about him possibly not being human. I hope you can figure out what I'm trying to explain here.**

**My computer decided to stop spellchecking and I don't know how to fix it, so I apologize for any errors. I did my best to catch them, but no guarantees that I succeeded.**

**Enjoy, if you can! And review, too, because that would make me so very happy.**

He was yelling again.

She sighed, walking towards the adjoining lab. There he was, screaming his head off at some poor scientist. Come to think of it, this looked like the same one he'd been yelling at two days ago.

"Look, you just can't do this!" he was saying loudly, waving his hands for emphasis. "It's dangerous and irrational. Do you have any idea how many people you could kill, not to mention all the Judoon?"

"What's a Judoon?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Intergalactic police in the form of space rhinos," he explained quickly. "But anyway, Rose, tell Harold how stupid he's being!"

"Stupid about what?" she said patiently, shooting Harold a sympathetic look. It wasn't his fault the Doctor was a bit of a genius.

"He thinks that using a highly experimental force field to isolate the Judoon is a good idea," he said, somehow managing to look both pitying and condescending.

"Explain why that's bad…" she said, immediately regretting speaking when he looked completely shocked.

"Rose, this force field is yet to be perfected or even tested at all, meaning that it could do absolutely anything to those Judoon and all the people anywhere near them, which could possibly be a great deal of London," he explained impatiently. "It's ridiculously dangerous."

"That's not good, then," she said simply. "Is there another way to deal with this?"

"Er—yes, but it's…it's a bit complicated," the Doctor said, suddenly looking awkward. She frowned, confused, and he continued, "You see, I speak the Judoon language, so I can talk to them, but…they might not respond well to my presence."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked warily, exchanging a bewildered glance with Harold.

"I'm half-human, half-Time Lord. Technically speaking, that's illegal, and the Judoon are very big on justice. There's a good chance that they would kill me," he said, adding, "Of course, since Time Lords don't appear to exist in this universe, they might just have no idea what I was and take me to their ships for scanning and dissection and all that."

"You're not getting dissected," Rose said flatly, "and you're not going to talk to the Judoon if they're just going to end up killing you. We need a different plan."

"That's what I was saying—" Harold began, but the Doctor spoke over him.

"Well, the Judoon are capable of assimilating other languages, so, really, anyone could talk to them, but I can't imagine who…"

"Right, then, I'll go talk with the Judoon and find out what they're doing here," she said. "Where are they?"

"No, Rose, you can't go!" he objected.

"Why not?" she said, shrugging. "Someone's got to, and I've got the most experience with aliens out of anyone here, except you, of course."

"I've met the Judoon; I should be the one going," he insisted resolutely, but she shook her head, frowning.

"I thought we already established that you can't go. So I'll be off," she said. "Again, where can I find them?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Rose?" Harold asked. "I mean, these are dangerous aliens. Maybe we should send a team or something…"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," she said impatiently.

"Lyncrest Road," the Doctor said. "That's where they are. I can drive you."

"You can drive?" she asked, surprised. Of course, it really shouldn't have been so shocking, since he could drive a TARDIS, so why not a car as well?

"Probably," he said with a grin. She laughed, a bit anxiously.

Twenty minutes later, they were pulling onto Lyncrest Road in Rose's old, beat-up minivan. The Doctor was driving, and doing a rather bad job. He kept forgetting how to brake.

"Here we are then. Can you see them, there in the middle of the street?" he said, pointing. "They've just been standing there for about an hour. All the people in the surrounding houses got out and they haven't tried to do anything yet, but…it's concerning. And quite…weird."

"Fair enough," Rose said cheerily. "See you later, then."

She got out of the car and started down the street, very aware of the unusual silence around her. As the Doctor had said, absolutely no one was around, except for her and the Judoon.

Speaking of which, this particular brand of aliens looked…strange. Extremely strange. He'd likened them to rhinoceri, but she hadn't thought he was speaking all that literally. Turns out, he most certainly was.

Rose glanced back at the Doctor, who was standing next to the van and watching her, frowning. She didn't want to admit how scared she had been at his talk of getting executed and dissected. He had spoken so matter-of-factly, as if it was of no importance. She couldn't help but wonder if that was because the reality of his ability to die had not yet sunk in or if he simply didn't want to reflect on death too much.

If he died, she didn't know what she would do. She'd been separated from him so many times over, but so far, they'd always ended up finding each other again. Death was not going to be so kind to them.

Several yards from the Judoon, Rose shook these thoughts out of her mind, concentrating on the task at hand. Specifically, finding out what exactly a group of five Judoon were doing on Earth, in the middle of London?

"Er—hello," she said awkwardly, standing behind the Judoon. They didn't move. "Hello? Can you hear me?"

"Bo-sko, fro-jo, no-cro, blow-co, sho-ro."

One of the Judoon turned around and stuck some suspicious-looking instrument into her face.

"Sorry, what are you doing?" she asked, stepping back quickly.

The Judoon took the instrument and attached it to his suit. Bemused, Rose heard her own voice played back to her, high and anxious: "Sorry, what are you doing?"

"Language assimilated. Earth English."

She was so surprised to hear him (Her? It?) speaking English that she just stared for a minute. Finally overcoming her shock, she said, "Hello, I'm Rose Tyler of the Torchwood Institute. Could you tell me what you're doing here?"

"We are waiting," the Judoon said flatly. She blinked.

"Waiting for what, exactly?"

"Commands."

"What commands?" she asked, starting to get irritated by this somewhat circular exchange.

"Commands from the Shadow Proclamation."

Intrigued to find out that this universe had a Shadow Proclamation as well, she said, "And what's the Shadow Proclamation supposed to tell you to do?"

"This planet has an unauthorized alien," he told her. "We need orders to find it."

"Do you know what alien it is? And what do you mean by 'unauthorized'?" In her experience, most aliens didn't ask permission before showing up on Earth.

"It is unidentified."

"If you don't know what it is, how are you going to find it?"

"The Shadow Proclamation will tell us."

"Yeah, but how do they know?" she insisted. These Judoon were not much fun to talk to.

"That is unknown."

"Brilliant. Okay, I'll be back in a minute. Stay here, yeah?" she said, already starting to walk away, rather exasperated. The Judoon didn't bother to answer.

So, what alien could they be talking about? As far as Torchwood knew, the Judoon themselves were the only aliens to arrive recently. Perhaps it had been here for a while already? No, that didn't make sense; the Judoon would have come earlier if that was the case. Clearly they didn't mind standing around doing nothing until they got orders.

"What happened, Rose?" the Doctor asked as soon as she got within speaking distance.

"The Judoon told me they're waiting for commands from the Shadow Proclamation about where to find an unauthorized alien," she said, sitting on the hood of the car.

"What did they mean by that?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"They just said the alien was 'unidentified'." She shrugged. "At least they're not causing any trouble right now."

"Still…as soon as the Shadow Proclamation gets back to them, who knows what could happen," he said thoughtfully. "I don't understand why they think this alien is unauthorized. What is that supposed to mean?"

"I dunno."

He squinted slightly, looking up at the sky with his forehead creased in concentration. "The only way it could be unidentified to the Shadow Proclamation would be if…" His voice faded away and Rose looked at him, confused.

"What's wrong?"

"A new alien." He said it simply, without concern or emotion, but she could tell that something seriously wasn't right in spite of (or perhaps because of) it.

"Explain…"

"If a new life form appeared and somehow the Shadow Proclamation noticed it, they'd want to find out more. Depending on the circumstances, it could be a violation of Article 42.6," he said quickly. "Of course, the fact that they sent in the Judoon could mean it's actually quite a big problem. The Shadow Proclamation could know more than they decided to tell the Judoon."

"But Torchwood hasn't noticed anything alien going on for a while," she reminded him. "Nothing suspicious has passed through the atmosphere for weeks."

"And that makes me think it could have been created here."

"What—on Earth somewhere?" Rose said, surprised. "By who?"

"I don't know," he said, sighing dejectedly and sinking down onto the car hood beside her. "That's the problem."

They sat there for a minute in silence, each of them thinking (and worrying) to themselves. Then the Doctor suddenly sat up ramrod straight, eyes going wide.

"What's wrong?" Rose said immediately, staring at him, slightly scared.

"Rose, go and ask them when they first found a sign that there was some new alien on Earth," he said, speaking quickly and with disturbing urgency.

"Okay." She obeyed without thinking, responding instinctively to his tone.

Setting off at a run, Rose almost smiled, recognizing the simultaneous uniqueness and familiarity of this situation. She was with the Doctor, dealing with a confusing alien threat, and, above all, she was _running_. It was brilliant to run like this again, even if the reason for her running could be very dangerous indeed. Just like old times.

"Judoon!" she called, slightly out of breath as she skidded to a stop in front of them. "I've got a…question for you."

"What is it?" She was pretty sure it was same one that she'd talked to earlier that was now speaking, but, frankly, it was hard to tell.

"When did you first see a sign that a new alien had come to Earth?" Rose demanded, pushing blonde hair out of her face and waiting impatiently for an answer.

"We received a signal approximately two weeks ago," the Judoon said.

"What d'you mean, a signal?"

"Unusual energy traces alerted the Shadow Proclamation, who called on the Judoon for assistance."

"Right…thanks!" she said, although she wasn't sure if she had anything to thank them for, and took off running again.

"What did they say?" the Doctor called out, coming to meet Rose as she approached. He was looking very nervous and kept running his hand through his hair, making it look even messier than normal. She couldn't help wondering if this was a side effect of fighting aliens without actually being able to do anything, having to rely on her for information.

"They said they found out from some energy traces about two weeks ago," she told him, trying to remain calm even when his face went pale. "What's wrong? What is it?"

"We need to get back to Torchwood," was all he said, getting in the van before she could respond.

"Why? What's going on?" she demanded, getting into the car anyway. "What do you know that you're not telling me?"

"We just need to drive right now," he said, speaking from between clenched teeth. She didn't know if he was angry at her persistent questions or at whatever it was that had concerned him so much.

Rose didn't say anything for the rest of ride (which took rather shorter than it should have—she wouldn't let herself look at the speedometer for fear of what she'd see, but something told her that they were not quite staying within the law). The second they arrived at Torchwood, the Doctor parked in a handicapped spot and galloped inside, Rose following him, extremely concerned.

"Pete! Scan the skies, now! Especially around the moon," he was yelling loudly, bursting into a lab in a most alarming fashion.

"What's happened?" Rose's father asked, mercifully obeying the Doctor's orders despite his questions. "And exactly what am I scanning for?"

"A ship. Specifically, a Judoon ship. They look like this"—he quickly drew a rather awful sketch of a spaceship that vaguely resembled an oxygen tank or some similar canister—"and they should be letting off some form of energy. I can't say what exactly; it's hard to know what they'll be using the energy for right now, which would affect what signals we're getting. Still, a simple scan should be sufficient—"

"Is this it?" Pete cut him off, pointing at a computer screen. The Doctor pulled out his brainy specs and leaned down to read the incomprehensible (at least to Rose) lines of symbols and numbers.

"Yes, that's it!" he proclaimed loudly, running over to a cart of alien devices and rifling through them.

"What are you doing?" Rose demanded, still exceptionally confused.

"I can't explain; I don't have time!" he said quickly.

"What do you need the coordinates of the ship?" she asked, speaking as fast as she could in hopes that that would somehow make him listen. "What are you planning to do, go to the ship or something?"

He gave her one of those looks, with one eyebrow raised and a highly disconcerting look in his eyes. She suddenly felt extremely worried.

"You can't be serious! You said yourself, you'd get killed if you went up there!" Rose pointed out loudly. "You're being completely ridiculous and—"

And then, without any apparent reason, he kissed her.

"What was that?" she said, not exactly angry; more confused.

"Sorry, but I may not be coming back," the Doctor said, with more good cheer than the situation called for. "Good-bye, then."

With a slight crackle of electricity and a flash of light, he disappeared completely.

**So, I don't know if you've figured out why he left, so…try to guess in the reviews, I suppose. I found it obvious, but that's almost certainly just because I already knew, of course. I could definitely see how you could not understand it. Just…drop me a review, pretty please?**


End file.
